STUART ― New City Manager Michael Giardino is aiming to collaborate with his colleagues here, much like he did as executive officer at Naval Air Station Key West, he said.
“Some people get the wrong impression of the military,” said Giardino, who retired from the Navy as a commander after 26 years, including six months as acting commander of the Key West air base.
People believe the military is dictatorial, Giardino said, now six weeks into his new role.
“It is not,” he said.
A collaborative effort
“There is one decision maker,” he admitted. “However, it’s a collaborative effort.”
Giardino, 63, is married and lives in Rocky Point. Before taking the city manager’s role here, he was deputy general manager of LaGuardia Airport in New York. He holds master’s degrees from the U.S. Naval War College and Naval Postgraduate School and a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Brockport.
Giardino earned a degree in meteorology.
“I learned very early in weather forecasting,” he said, “the best forecast of all is a consensus forecast.”
A former deputy of Giardino, though, said he held his subordinates accountable while giving them the ability to make decisions in the best interest of their departments and the organization.
He expected things to be done on time and within the parameters agreed upon, said Andrew Moore, director of the Frederick Douglas Greater Rochester International Airport and deputy director under Giardino.
“He’s also the kind of manager that doesn’t sit in his office,” Moore said. “He was interested in all elements of the operation.”
Giardino started as city manager April 27 at a salary of $195,000. He succeeds Michael Mortell, who was fired by the City Commission without cause in October. City commissioners, including Mayor Sean Reed, who voted to fire Mortell later said they had concerns about his behavior on and off the job, but those commissioners failed to raise those concerns before firing him.
At the time, Vice Mayor Christopher Collins said he wanted to avoid putting Mortell on trial at a City Commission meeting.
“I haven’t had any issues” with Giardino, Reed said. “It’s been positive, and I think we were solving issues. There (are) still a couple things that I would like to change in the city.”
Reed, for example, wants to make city commissioners’ and the city manager’s emails available to the public online, he said, as Martin County does with emails to and from county commissioners and the county administrator.
“That’s open government,” Reed said. “That’s something I would like to push for with him.”
Collaborating with commissioners
Giardino characterized his relationship with the City Commission as collaborative.
“We sometimes speak daily,” Giardino said of the four current commissioners. “We’re responsive to one another.”
Exchanging information with the commissioners “has been just great, respectful, very cordial, but in a professional manner,” he said.
That’s how Giardino has worked in the past, said Sanford Wanner, who hired Giardino as executive director of the Peninsula Airport Commission in 2017.
“I think he’s a listener and a collaborative worker,” said Wanner. “But he’s pretty forceful in pushing forward the agenda.”
Giardino was forceful in pushing forward the agenda of the commission he was serving, Wanner said, in part to improve commercial service at Newport News-Williamsburg Airport.
Giardino eventually was fired from that role without cause, Giardino admitted.
When it comes to City Hall, Giardino stressed, he works for Stuart’s employees.
“It’s about making sure that every employee has the resources, the training and tools, whatever those tools are — available to them to do their job and get value,” he said.
And he wants to learn from employees, too, he said.
Giardino’s ambitious, too
“I think he’s very ambitious,” Reed said, “which I appreciate, but we also have to be realistic.”
Giardino has been ambitious when it comes to deadlines, Reed said.
“If you can get it done in those time frames that you say, I’m all for it then,” Reed added. “Government is a slow process, so if he can speed certain things up or move things along in a positive direction, I’m all for it.”
Keith Burbank is a watchdog reporter for TCPalm, usually covering Martin County. He can be reached at keith.burbank@tcpalm.com.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida city gets a new manager with a collaborative approach
Reporting by Keith Burbank, Treasure Coast Newspapers / Treasure Coast Newspapers
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Keith Burbank, Treasure Coast Newspapers | USA TODAY Network
